


Attend the Tale

by fardareismai



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Sweeney Todd - Sondheim/Wheeler
Genre: Captain Charming Brotp, Captain Swan - Freeform, Character Death, F/M, Mentions of Pregnancy, Mentions of Rape, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of neglect, Sweeney Todd AU, Villain Death, all other relationships are only brief mentions, bae as beadle bamford, captain cobra brotp, charming cobra brotp, david as anthony, henry as joanna, henry as toby, killian as sweeney, milah as lovett, musical AU, nobody is a good guy, rumple as judge turpin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 18:06:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6968248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Attend the tale of Captain Hook.<br/>His smile was bright and black his look.<br/>He rode the waves and swore to no king<br/>Enchanted with treasures this freedom could bring.<br/>He loved like a prince in the fairy tale book.<br/>Did Captain Hook.<br/>A pirate of the high seas.</p><p>Attend the tale of Captain Hook.<br/>His love he sought and his vengeance took.<br/>What happens then? Well that’s the play<br/>And he wouldn’t want us to give it away.<br/>Not Captain Hook.<br/>A pirate of the high seas.</p><p>(A Captain Swan Sweeney Todd AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> See end for Author's note and warnings. This chapter has no content warnings, but the fic does, however, if you prefer not to be spoiled, you can skip the end note.

**Overture**

The sun rises over London, that great pit, already teeming with sin and vice and filth.

It lights first the austere facade of the house of a judge in a quiet, clean neighborhood. On the surface all is beauty and light but beneath…

In the house lives a man, his son, and his son's son. The youngest of these has a heart as pure as the driven snow. The man in the middle- the son of the judge- has a heart twisted and black with every sin and vice imaginable. The eldest- the judge, a man presumably of mercy and justice- has no heart at all.

In the house also live a butler and a housekeeper. A maid and a footman. A cook and a scullion. A valet for each man. A governess and a nanny. Each has a heart that runs the spectrum from goodness to wickedness, from virtue to vice. It is not their hearts that make this story, however.

There is one other heart that beats in that house. To whom it belongs, well that's a mystery to be solved, but know this only: it beats.

And so we follow the sun to a different neighborhood, this one far more lowly, to a shop that sells pies. As the sun makes its way in to light the windows, the woman in the shop has been awake for hours to be sure there are pies to be sold.

Most will not be sold. There may, in London on this dawning day, be those souls hungry or foolish enough to eat the pies, but they are not the story.

She has secrets, this woman, this baker. There are chains that bind her to the pastry board of the worst pie shop in London forged of selfishness and the hearts of those left behind.

This woman too has a beating heart in her breast. It is darkened by desires unfulfilled and appetites unfed.

Finally the sun makes it across the city and gilds the sails of a ship as it glides into London harbour.

At the helm stand two men, of a height with one-another, one dark and one golden, watching the city slide by. They stand, feet braced against the roll of waves that no longer plague their ship here so close to the harbour. One steady hand guides the helm with the assurance of years.

The blonde man's heart beats a grateful tattoo to see his home again. The dark man's broken heart stutters with fear as he imagines what horrors he will find waiting for him in the great, wretched charnel yard of London.

As the sun finally reaches the dark corners and obscure spots in the great City, a thousand thousand hearts beat- sinners and saints, virtuous and vicious, rich and poor- and each of them has a story.

But not _this_ story.


	2. Act I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Section titles are songs in the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
> 
> Please see first chapter author's note for content warnings.

**No Place Like London**

_On the Decks of the Jolly Roger_

"Is there anything in all the world as beautiful as one's first sight of home after a time away, Hook?" David asked, leaning out over the rail of the ship as though to get as close as possible to the city.

"Stand up straight, man! Bloody hell, I didn't save you from sharks and hypothermia just to have you fall into the Thames and catch typhus once you were finally within spitting distance of your wife."

David laughed in delight as the wind off the docks blew the foetor of London into his nose. He did as asked, however, and pushed himself away from the rail, bounding instead up to where Hook stood, right hand on the wheel, left arm folded behind his back. David took his place behind and to the Captain's left, as though he were first mate. The real first mate had been left behind with the rest of the crew at the last port, overseeing the sale of the contents of the ship's hold out of sight of the taxman and customs officials. David and the Captain had then made the rest of the way up the coast to London to see David home.

Once in dock, Hook left David to tie the ship off as he went to find the harbourmaster and pay his fees. David watched him as he worked. He had been aboard the ship for some months to this point and had come to know the Captain well. Where once David might have sworn that he could never be friends with a pirate he found now, to his surprise, that he was. Captain Hook, for that was the only name he had ever given David, was charming and brave. He was a good Captain, a good pirate, and a good man. He moved with the confidence both on and off his ship of a man who knew his place in the world and his worth.

As they had drawn ever closer to London, however, a change had seem to come over the Captain. With every mile he seemed less confident and somehow younger. Even now, as David watched him approach the harbourmaster- a thing David had seen him do half a dozen times before- he did not move with the loose-limbed swagger of a man who knows his every order will be followed, but with the tension of a man who feels antagonistic eyes on his back.

For the first time, David realized that the Captain was afraid. Something in London had him scared witless.

David had the ship secured by the time Hook made it back to him, running his fingers distractedly over the wickedly sharp silver apparatus that replaced his left hand and gave him his moniker. Without a word, the Captain checked David's knots, nodding in approval each time before joining him on the deck.

"Well then, David," he said with a shadow of his usual grin, "I'd not have thought it possible before, but you've proven a competent sailor. If ever the honest and honourable life were to grow tiresome for you, you'd have a place on a pirate ship."

David reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "Thank you, Captain. And thank you for saving my life. I'd never have thought to owe my life to a pirate, but I'm glad it's you, sir."

Hook waved his hand as though to clear away David's thanks. "It's nothing."

David shook his head, gripping the Captain's arm tighter. "It's not nothing. Most pirates- most _men-_ would have left me to drown and thought nothing of it. You went out of your way to be sure I made it home, and I do thank you. If there is anything I can do for you, anything I can help you achieve while you're here in London, do not hesitate to ask."

David glanced down at the deck, wondering if he had the courage to continue, but he looked up again, catching those startlingly blue eyes with his own steel-coloured ones.

"I've tried not to pry into your affairs, Hook, but you've not been yourself these past few days. You needn't tell me anything, but I do consider you a friend and I'd help if I could."

That, finally, drew a true smile from the pirate. "I consider you a friend as well, David. To tell it truly, I don't know if I am more myself here or less. It's been ten years since I was last in London, and I do not know who I am in this City anymore."

He stepped away from David, not as though he were dismissing the man, merely as though he needed to move as he collected his thoughts. David kept pace with him until they approached the railing on the side of the deck and leaned together over it, watching the city.

"Ten years ago, you see, there lived in London an honest sailor and his wife. He was a whole man and she was beautiful, and he loved her to distraction. He had found work on a ship for a three month voyage, and though he was loath to part from her for so long, it was his duty to provide for their living."

_They had woken late that last morning, with the golden light already spilling over their bed. They had made slow and lazy love to one another before rising and he had sworn to himself that he would remember her as she was in that moment- sun-gilded and pink-cheeked, her golden hair an angelic halo across the pillow, words of love on her lips, and green eyes shining- for the entire time he was away. He had done so._

"His ship was waylaid not even a week out of port by the Navy and the entire crew was pressed into service. It might not have been so bad, that. It was still honourable work, though it would have given the man less freedom to be with his wife. Shortly after that, however, the Naval vessel was set upon by pirates who made the honourable sailor a slave until he led a mutiny and became a pirate himself."

"And your- the lady?" David prompted.

_They had walked hand-in-hand through the city together, unwilling to stop touching. He had bought her a flower from a street-side seller- a rose- and had brushed it over her cheeks and lips and eyelids, teasing her._

_That night he had made love to her again. Once fast and desperate. Once slow and lingering. And one final time, in the still, small hours of the night when one can feel the press of dawn, and he could already feel the call of the ocean, he had made love to her so gently and softly that it had drawn breath from his lungs and tears from his eyes._

"I don't know, David. I think that honourable sailor might be dead now though."

"My wife would say that so long as your heart still beats, there is hope."

**Poor Thing**

_Mrs. Gold's Pie Shop_

Captain Hook slid, silent as a shadow, through the open door of the pie shop.

As he had walked through the city, he had found much that had remained the same. His boots had known the path from the docks as though it had been only yesterday since he'd made the journey last. While his feet had known the place, however, his eyes had been assaulted with the differences. Most startling of these was whenever he caught sight of his own reflection in a shop window.

Gone was the fresh-faced youth he'd been, long hair pulled back in a queue, homespun garments sewn for him by a loving wife. He was now head-to-toe black leather, hair short and rumpled by the wind off the waves, eyes made to flash by application of kohl, cheekbones and jaw made stark by age, pain, and hunger as well as the dark stubble that defined both, his very left hand a weapon.

Would she even recognize him? The beloved wife he had left behind all those years ago?

Hook squinted at the girl kneading dough at the counter. She was not his wife, the spill of dark hair over her shoulders made that clear, nor was she his erstwhile landlady, she was far too young for that. The Widow Lucas had had a dark-haired, wolf-smiled granddaughter, however, and he wondered if, perhaps, it was she.

She looked up at the sound of his boot on the boards, however, and he did not recognize her face.

"Ooh, a customer!" she trilled, bustling out from behind the counter. "Sit you down, dearie," she continued, taking his elbow and pulling him, with surprising strength, to a table before the plate window. "I'll get you a drink. And perhaps a pie?" This last was asked with a hopeful, pleading note in her voice.

"No," Hook said, forcefully. His nerves alone had him nauseous, but the smell coming from the case of pies was not helping him.

"Oh," the girl said, sounding disappointed, "so you've heard of us then. Pity. Ah well, price of a glass of beer's better than no sale at all, I suppose." She set a greasy mug of beer before him and vanished behind the counter yet again, returning in a trice with a tumbler of some clear liquid that Hook guessed was not water and seated herself across from him.

"If you're not here for the meat pies, what does bring you in then? Perhaps something not on the menu?" She gave him an appraising look as though at a fine-looking but suspiciously low-priced fish at the market, then she shrugged. "I wouldn't normally, but I like the looks of you and the grocer's bill is about to come due."

Hook nearly choked on his mouthful of beer. "No," he coughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "No, I'm not here for that either."

He looked at her fully for the first time. She was perhaps five or six years older than he and not un-handsome. He thought there were many men who would have taken her up on her offer. His interests lay in a different direction, however.

"I've not been in London for a time now, but when last I was the shop was run by a woman by the name of Lucas."

"Oh her," the woman said, dismissively. "I bought the place from her when she had to sell up. Poor old mite, practically run out on a rail she was. Funny rumours you see- her pies were always the tastiest in town, but people started noticing there were never any neighborhood cats nearby. People will draw their own conclusions, you know."

Hook did know. The Widow Lucas had been deathly allergic to cats and had paid local dog-owners to allow their animals to piss around the shop to keep the strays away.

The woman was giving Hook a knowing, satisfied smile that made his skin crawl. He took another mouthful of the watery beer to avoid having to look at her.

"There was a girl though-" he began.

"The Lucas girl? She went with her grandmother. They're in the country somewhere now. Odd ducks, the pair of them, they'll be happier out of the city anyway."

"Not her, another girl. She and her husband lived in the flat above the shop."

"Blimey and it's been ten years and more if you remember that silly nit. Her husband was a sailor. They say he was lost at sea. Never came back, he didn't." Once again, she gave him that appraising look and knowing smile. "That's what they say, anyway. As for the girl, she's long gone."

"Where?"

"I don't believe I caught your name. I'm Milah Gold."

Hook brought his mug down onto the table with a crash and brought the shining hook on his left hand up to rest next to it in implicit threat. "Where?" he growled again.

Milah's eyes opened wide. "Well it's not a very nice story. Truth to tell, if it were dark out, I wouldn't even tell you. It's enough to give a woman nightmares. Particularly a woman who lives alone." This last was said dripping with insinuation. She looked up at him from under her dark fringe of lashes.

Hook turned his left arm a fraction of an inch so the hook flashed bright silver in the pale sunlight slanting through the window.

"You're lucky you found me, you know," she continued hurriedly. "There's rumours all over about what happened to her, but I know the truth. I was in the house you see, Judge Cassidy's, and I saw it all. See the Judge's son, Neal, he'd always had a hot eye for that girl, so when the silly little fool's husband went off to get himself drowned, the lad sent her an invitation to a masque at the house. Now, one doesn't turn down an invitation like that, so she went…"

_She had arrived wearing her best dress, a simple gown of white silk that wrapped her torso tightly and flared subtly from her hips and had been a terrible extravagance when her husband had purchased it for her, though it paled in comparison to the finery she could see through the door of the drawing room. She had given her cloak to the man at the door and accepted in exchange a glass of champagne. She'd had no mask, but the invitation had said that one wouldn't be necessary._

_When she entered the ballroom she found that she was the only one who didn't, however. She drank her champagne for fortitude, but found that it only made the room whirl faster than it had been before._

_She moved through the crush, hoping to see a familiar face, or even a single person who was not masked, but there was no one._

" _Neal Cassidy," she had said to the people she passed. "I am looking for Neal Cassidy."_

_She had felt drunk. Far more than a single glass of champagne should warrant._

_They had only laughed at her._

_Finally, a man in a dark cloak and a crocodile mask had loomed up before her, pushing her down to the settee and shoving up her skirts-_

"Stop!"

Hook found himself standing, his hook buried deep in the wood of the table, his right hand clenched in horror and fury.

"Would no one help her?" he growled, the words forced past the constriction in his throat and chest.

The woman, Milah Gold, did not answer him. She just looked up at him with an odd half-smile on her face.

"I wondered if it was you. Didn't drown after all then. Time has changed you, Killian Jones."

"No," he shouted, wrenching his hook from the table and thrusting it toward her. "My name is Hook."

She looked at the implement with mild curiosity. "As you like then, _Hook_."

"What happened then?" he asked, teeth clenched.

She looked up at him, grey eyes wide as though surprised that he did not know. "It drove her mad, of course. Poor thing," she added as an obvious afterthought. "You look like perhaps you could use a drink."

She pushed herself halfway out of her chair but stopped when the silver hook rested itself ever-so-gently on her shoulder, the wicked point glinting.

"Sit."

She sat.

"Finish the story. What happened to her?"

She kept a wary eye on the hook on her shoulder and her voice lacked the teasing note it had carried up until that point.

"Well they locked her away, didn't they? At least until her belly began to grow."

Hook collapsed back into his chair at this, his face sickly pale.

"She had the child in the house," Milah continued, ruthlessly. "But she bled, like they do sometimes, like as never to stop. She did stop though, of course, in the end."

**Green Finch and Linnet Bird**

_The home of The Honourable Judge Cassidy_

"I will find you. No matter where you go, I will always find you."

Henry smiled as he turned the page. They were getting to his very favourite part of the story- when the unwilling prince and the princess in exile came to realize that they loved each other. He leaned his head back against the door behind him and sighed happily.

"This one is my favorite story. I wonder which one yours is.."

No noise issued from behind the locked door. She never spoke to him. She never did anything but cry and listen. At least, he hoped she was listening when the crying stopped as he read to her from his big book of fairy tales.

Henry had never seen the woman who lived in the locked room of his house. The Judge kept the key to her room and, if he were honest, Henry was slightly afraid of his grandfather. He knew the Judge wouldn't do anything to _hurt_ him, but sometimes he looked at Henry as though he were sizing him up for a noose, as he did the criminals in his courtroom.

Henry wondered what her room was like. Sometimes he imagined it like his room- dark damask draperies and heavy dark wood furniture. He wondered if she, like he, had a window out of which she could see the world that she, unlike he, could never venture into.

His grandfather had a lark that he kept in a cage in his study. When first he had installed the creature, it had sung constantly and thrown itself at the bars of its cage toward the window as though desperate for freedom. The Judge had taken to keeping the curtains drawn on the windows to the outside whenever the cage was uncovered, keeping the poor bird constantly in the dark. It had eventually stopped throwing itself at the walls of its cage, but it had stopped singing as well. It had grown so docile, in fact, that Henry had once been able to touch it, gently stroking the silky feathers and feeling the rushing thrum of its heart in its breast.

Henry had just begun to read about how Prince Charming had set a trap for the bandit princess Snow White outside of her hideout in the woods when his governess interrupted.

"Master Henry, your father has asked that you go riding with him in the park."

Henry looked up from his book in surprise. His father did not often care to have anything to do with him and it had been months since his last such whim. He thought he must be a very wicked child, for the truth was that he would mostly prefer for his father to leave him be. When the two of them spent time together, his father wanted Henry to remain silent on the topics in which he had interest- his schooling, his books, and the stories he sometimes tried to write. His father always wanted to talk of hunting and gaming and women, topics which, even young as he was, Henry knew were not the proper sort of thing for a father to discuss with his ten-year-old son.

He supposed he loved his father, for one must, but he would have much preferred to go riding with the groom or to stay in the house and read fairy tales to the disembodied weeping behind the door.

"But… I haven't finished reading the story!" he said, indicating the book in his lap.

"Master Henry, you've read it half a hundred times!" his governess said, indulgently.

"But, she…" Henry said, gesturing at the door behind him, not sure how to explain.

"You've a good heart," she said, rumpling Henry's silky hair, "but that poor mite doesn't understand what you're saying. She's too touched. Doesn't understand anything, she doesn't."

"But she always stops crying when I read to her," Henry argued.

"Probably she's just gone to sleep, little Master. She will be just fine without you, and it would not do to keep your father waiting." The governess stooped to pick up Henry's book, tucking it under one arm and starting off down the hall. "Come on then, Lad."

Henry looked after her for a moment, wondering if she were correct and he was wasting his time trying to reach the weeping mad woman who lived, locked away, in his home.

He then thought of the weeping that could always be heard from behind the locked door, and the way it always stopped as soon as he began a story with "once upon a time."

He thought of larks kept in the dark that would no longer sing or fly.

He thought of princesses who were locked in towers to be saved by handsome princes, and curses that were cured by true love's kiss.

"I'll be back later," he said to the door. "I'll come back and we'll finish the story, I promise. Cross my heart." He drew a finger over his chest where he could feel that organ thrumming and pulsing beneath his breast, like the lark's. "Please don't be sad."

After he left, the hallway was quiet for several long minutes, the only sound the tick of the great wooden clock at the end. Finally, a whimper of pain and horrible despair issued from under the locked door, and the weeping began again.

**Ah Miss**

_The riding trail in the park_

David walked through the park, enjoying the watery sunlight and the feel of unmoving ground beneath his boots after months at sea.

He had spent the previous night in his wife's bed, and would have spent the day there as well, but duty called. His wife taught letters to some of the neighborhood children and he would soon need to find work now that he was returned home. Captain Hook had given him what he had said was a crewman's share of the profits of the sale of the goods in the ship's hold, which would hold David and his wife over for some months, but it was important to him to have good, useful work to do as well.

He thought of the offer that the Captain had made the previous day- of a place on his pirate ship- and David found himself slightly tempted. The rough work, rough company, freedom, and camaraderie had sung in his blood more strongly than he would have believed, and he indulged a brief daydream of taking his wife aboard Hook's ship, putting London to the rudder, and turning the sails toward the unknown horizon.

The thought of Hook brought David's mind back to his present place and time. He wondered how the Captain was doing, and whether he had found his wife yet. David sent up a prayer to whatever gods watched over sailors, pirates, and men in love that he'd found her well and that he, like David, had been welcomed back into her bed with open arms.

A man and a child rode by on a horse path down the hill from where David stood, thinking of the way his wife had looked, rising from their bed that morning- snow-white skin still flushed slightly pink, night-black hair mussed, and rosy-red lips kiss-swollen. He smiled at the memory and glanced up from the finely-dressed pair on the path to the position of the sun, wondering if perhaps enough time had passed that his wife would be done with her teaching.

An equine shriek sliced through these lazy ramblings and David looked down the hill to see that the bay mare being ridden by the younger of the pair he'd been desultorily watching seemed to be in great distress of a sudden.

David was off down the hill before the echoes of the shriek had even dissipated into the air, and had his hand on the creature's bridle before his mind had caught up to his feet. With a brief application of muscle more recently honed on rigging than reigns, he had the horse down from her rear and back on four legs. From there the most important muscle was not that of his arms, but his tongue, with which he clicked and murmured at the creature, stroking and gentling her until she stopped dancing and stood at peace once again.

Finally, after what was probably too long, David looked from the horse's face into the two pairs of human eyes that were watching him with surprise and speculation.

The surprise was in the dark eyes of the child still clinging to the back of the mare whose bridle David still held.

"You saved my life!" he whispered, finally pushing himself upright from where he had been clinging to her mane. The lad slid off the mare's back and threw himself at David, hugging him like as to break his ribs. David might have found it funny, but he could feel the way the child was shaking with reaction, his heart beating fast and light as a bird.

"Henry!"

The sharp bark of the voice made the lad jump and stumble away from David to stand, shamefaced, beside his horse.

"I'm sorry, Father. I only wanted to thank him."

"And well you should," the older man said, having dropped down from his horse and moved to join the conversation. He laid a hand on the boy's shoulder, "but it would be best to do so with some dignity and without making a nuisance of yourself."

The man looked at David who quickly lowered his eyes, tugging the brim of his cap in obeisance. "No thanks necessary, my lords. I was happy to help," he murmured.

"No, no," the man said, shaking his head. "My son is quite right, you did save him. Perhaps not his life, but you did spare him injury at the least, and that is deserving of thanks." He extended his hand to David. "My name is Neal Cassidy. Perhaps you know my father the Judge?"

David took Cassidy's hand for a brief shake. "Of course my Lord. Everyone knows the great Judge Cassidy." Everyone knew him as a heartless fiend, but David thought it, perhaps, more politic to avoid this point.

"Yes of course. Well, if ever you can think of any service that I could do you or any means of assistance I could provide, do not hesitate to ask."

David could hear the dismissal in the statement (as well as the implication that David would do well not to think of any assistance the man might render) and was about to take his leave when the lad interrupted.

"You should come to luncheon at our house!"

Both men turned to find the lad's face lit like a candle with the idea.

"I don't think-" David began.

"Cook said that she was making apple cake, you must come for that!" Henry interrupted.

David could not bring himself to put out the lad's light. "I do find apple cake hard to resist, but I must defer to your father."

Lord Cassidy was frowning at his son. "The Judge-" he began, only to have his son interrupt him as well.

"Grandfather is at court all day today and won't return until late. Please Father? He did save my life!"

David watched the other man's face soften into the first affection he had seen from him. "Yes, I suppose that's true and luncheon is surely the least we can do. In that case we should start back, for we shall have to walk the horses. You will assist your new acquaintance with yours then?"

"Yes, Father!" the boy cried, practically squirming in pleasure. "Thank you, Father!"

Lord Cassidy turned toward David. "I don't believe I caught your name, sir."

"David Nolan," he offered with a short bow.

"Well met then, David Nolan. I extend to you the hospitality of the house of Cassidy."

**My Friends**

_Mrs. Gold's Pie Shop_

"And what of the child?" Hook asked when he could finally catch his breath.

"Oh him? He's still there, living with his father and grandfather, isn't he?"

Alive, he thought. Her son was alive. She may have gone where he could never again reach her, but there was some part of her that still walked this Earth. Some part of her that he could see and touch and know.

"He doesn't look like her though, if that's what you're thinking," Mrs. Gold continued, unaware of Hook's churning thoughts. "He's the very image of his father."

"I must see him," he said, pushing himself out of the chair, across the room in two long strides. "I must go to him."

Mrs. Gold was stunned for only a moment before she was scrambling out after him, grabbing a shawl from a rack by the door as she rushed out. "Now wait you right there, Mr. Hook!" she called.

"Captain," he growled.

Milah was panting by the time she caught him up. "Beg pardon?"

"It's Captain, not Mister."

Milah ignored this. "Do you even know where you're going then?"

Hook pointed with his right hand. "The courthouse is that way. I'd expect him to live nearby, but I'll scour every home in London if I must."

"And what do you plan to do with the Judge and his son if they stand in the way of you taking that boy, then? They will, you know."

He lifted his left hand, scowling at his hook with concentration. "My hook has bathed in the blood of men who have committed lesser crimes, I can assure you of that."

Milah grabbed at his left arm, carefully avoiding the sharp weapon at the end, halting his forward motion and turning him to face her. "What's your rush?"

All the time she had been telling him the events of the distant past she had vacillated between relish and oddly flirtatious amusement, but when faced with this murderous fury, she seemed suddenly afraid.

"You can't just go running in half-cocked you know," she said, tugging on his arm as though to pull him back to her shop, only to find what felt like leather-encased steel beneath her fingers. "You've got to have a plan!"

"My plan is to bury my hook in his black heart, and if it's too small for my hook to reach, my sword will do."

"And how's that going to look to that lad then? That's his father. He don't know his mother. Kill that man and you'll never be anything to that boy but the bastard who killed the only parent he's ever had."

"But Emma-" he began.

Milah let out an exasperated huff, her mouth twisted into an expression of distaste. "What's done is done man, and no more to be done about it. Your Emma is gone and no amount of blood spilled will bring her back. It's been ten years."

Hook forced himself to let go of the tension that had him pulled tight as a guitar string. The woman was right, after all. He had killed on a whim before, but with Emma's son in the balance, he'd have to think it through.

"There's a good lad," Milah murmured, loosening her hold on his arm and reaching up to stroke instead. "Come on then, back to the shop. We'll think of something together, won't we? Subtlety, that's what's needed here. A woman's touch, you might say."

Hook was watching the hand that caressed his bicep insinuatingly with a wary eye and had just opened his mouth to speak when a voice came from up the street.

"Hook! Captain! Well met!"

He pulled his arm from Milah's grip and turned to find David walking down the street toward them, arm raised in greeting.

"David!" Hook called back and, for the first time since he'd set foot inside of that accursed pie shop, he felt himself smile. "Has your wife already barred you from her bed then? I'd thought not to see you again for a week at least!"

David approached and clapped him on the back, laughing. "I might have said the same of you, Captain!" He turned his bright grin on Milah. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mistress. Your husband here is a hero. He saved my life."

"No," Hook said, laying a hand on David's arm. "This is… not my wife."

David's eyes went wide. "Then who-?"

"She is-" Hook began, uncomfortably.

"A friend," Milah interrupted, giving David an innocent and insincere smile.

David blinked and looked at Hook for explanation.

"She owns a pie shop which used to belong to my landlady. Mrs. Gold purchased it from her."

"I see," David said, nodding. "And your wife?"

Hook glanced away from David's grey-blue eyes, girding himself for what he had not yet said but must come to terms with. "She is dead."

"Gods," David whispered, putting a hand on Hook's shoulder. "When?"

"Nearly as long as I've been gone."

"I'm so sorry, Hook. I had hoped… prayed."

Hook finally met his eyes again with a wan smile. "As had I, mate. As had I."

The two men stood in silence at the enormity of the situation as Milah began to fidget in annoyance.

"Come along you two, we shouldn't have this talk on the street. Let's get back to the shop and continue there, shall we? I shouldn't leave it so long."

The two men followed after her meekly as lambs.

As they walked, David spoke to Hook. "So what happens now for you? Will you move on now that…?"

Hook shook his head. "Business will compel me to stay, I think. You see, she- Emma- had a child before she died. I'd like to find the boy."

Neither man noticed as Milah stared at Hook in shock as he divulged this information.

"Yes," David said, "yes I can see that you would. And what providence is it that I may have met someone this very day who can help you in your search? I was able to provide some small assistance to the son of a legal gentleman and might be able to ask him for, if nothing else, his advice on how to proceed. You and I could go to him tomorrow."

Hook shook his head. "I think that a pirate captain would not be a welcome guest at the home of such great honour, do you?"

David shrugged, but had to agree with the logic. "I could bring him to you then. Where are you staying in the city? On Fleet Street with your… friend?"

"No," Hook said with a certain finality that might have made Mrs. Gold look askance if she had not pulled so far ahead of the men that she could not hear them. "I shall be staying on the ship. You may bring him there, if he will come."

"That I shall. Tomorrow, in fact," David said, sounding certain.

"David," Hook began, turning toward the man, "it's not necessary-"

"It is," David cut him off. "Not only because you saved my life. Perhaps that debt was paid by my labour on the ship. I do this because you have become a friend to me, Hook. Perhaps the best friend I've ever had."

"Thank you, David. Truly. I consider you a friend as well."

The two men walked slowly in silence through the streets of London for a few minutes.

"Perhaps I could bring pies home for supper. Keep my wife from having to cook," David mused.

"I wouldn't recommend it," Hook said.

**Mea Culpa**

_The locked room in the home of the Honorable Judge Cassidy_

The lamp was lit in the dark room making the woman inside cringe back as though burned.

She looked like a creature of darkness- her skin translucent-pale, her hair a brittle hag's mat. She wore a filthy, stained gown of white cotton through which, with the lamp lit, one could see the shape of her otherwise-naked body.

"I've brought you your supper, Dearie."

The weeping stopped suddenly and for the space of four fluttering heartbeats, the room was silent. Then the pitiful creature on the bed made a sound like a hissing cat.

"Now now, keep on like that and you'll have nothing to eat, there's a good girl."

The hissing noise stopped, but there was still a low, animalistic grumble in the back of the girl's throat.

"That's more like it then."

The tray was set before her and its bearer crossed the room to the only chair, which sat by the boarded window. This he looked at with interest, noting that there were cracks between the boards through which he could see the twilit back garden.

"Do you watch him when he plays outside then? The lad? Do you see how he's grown? How much he looks like his father?"

She made no noise, just tore roughly into the bread he had brought her and he watched her quietly for a few minutes.

"I've wondered sometimes why you are still alive."

She made no indication that she heard.

"Not a question of why you will continue to live, stubborn beast that you are, but why I have not killed you yet."

She stilled then, her eyes flashing fever-bright behind the moon-pale curtain of her hair. Slowly, she set the bread she had been eating back on the tray.

"Oh no, dearie, I wouldn't do it like that. I've thought of it, you see, and I wouldn't poison you."

That low growl sounded again.

"Well, that's not to say that I'd never poison anyone, but not you. No, for you I think I'd like something just a bit more… intimate."

Again, that hissing cat noise.

"Not that either, dearie. You are, most assuredly, not to my tastes. But you have been haunting my home and the thoughts of my son and grandson for a decade now. If I were to rid us all of you, I'd like to do it myself."

One pale, bony hand flexed over the butter knife on the tray, but did not touch.

"Perhaps a pillow over your face. It would stop your constant weeping."

She shifted slightly.

"What is it makes you cry so desperately? It it Him? The dead man? You know that I killed him, don't you? Not with my own hands- I've never done that before, which is why it would be so novel to do so to you- but I did make sure he would never return. I've killed so many, you see. Sent them to the gallows or given the order. There is blood on my soul, but not on my hands."

She gave a low moan of pain, like an animal stepping on a thorn.

"Or perhaps it is the lad. Perhaps I should stop him reading outside your door. I could do it, you know. Then you'd have no visitors but me."

The hand finally dropped to the knife, but he moved with the speed of a snake, standing and crossing the room in the blink of an eye to grab the wasted wrist before it had even brought the knife more than an inch off the tray.

"Now now, dearie, you don't want to be doing that, now do you? I needn't put my hands to your throat you know. I'm the only person in this house with the key to your room. Perhaps I just… don't bring you your supper tomorrow? Perhaps I just… forget?"

The hand convulsed and dropped the knife.

"That's right. You remember who is in charge here, don't you?" He let go of the wrist and lifted the tray from before her. "I think you've had quite enough for tonight. We'll see if I remember to bring you supper tomorrow, shall we?"

At the door he was arrested by a voice he had not heard in ten years.

"Cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life."

He looked back to see that she had, for the first time in many years, pushed her hair back from her face so that he could see the dark circles beneath her eyes and the hectic flush in her cheeks.

"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

For all she seemed to be speaking madness, her eyes were lucid for the first time in memory.

"Serpent, am I?" he asked, though he found that his heart quailed at the sight of her.

"Crocodile," she whispered, then she bared her teeth in a parody of a smile that looked more like a grimace.

His courage, what he had of it, fled him then and he left the room slamming and locking it behind him.

**Epiphany**

_On the decks of the Jolly Roger_

Hook measured the length and breadth of the deck of his ship in paces, once, and again, and yet again.

He wondered at himself for agreeing to meet with this man- this son of a legal gentleman. He did not need advice for what he must do, he knew. What he wanted only was opportunity.

The plan was simplicity itself: Hook would go to the home of the judge some dark night, find the boy's room, drug the child, and carry him away. The ship would be out of London harbour before the judge and his son were awake and they would never find either of them.

"And what then?" There was a voice echoing in his head- the voice of his better angels. Emma's voice. "A child you've kidnapped on a pirate ship, chased by a rich and powerful man across the waves. And he'll want nothing to do with you, the boy. He'll spend his life trying to escape you."

She was right, of course. It wasn't a plan, it was a daydream. Hook brought his fist down on the railing with a low thunk.

"Easy now," the voice in his head soothed. "Hush, love, hush."

"I can't be easy with your son on the line," he muttered to himself knowing, but not caring, that it was madness to talk back to the voices in his head.

He closed his eyes and pretended for a long moment that the wind ruffling through his hair were her fingers.

"Captain!" a voice called, this one male and not inside his head, and he opened his eyes to find David leading a dark-haired, square-jawed man up the marina to where Hook's ship was docked.

"Permission to come aboard?"

"You're neither a member of my crew nor even a sailor anymore, mate. There's no need to stand on such formality."

David shrugged. "Perhaps not, but a friend of mine once told me that it was good form."

Hook couldn't help a smile. "Well then, sailor, permission granted. Welcome aboard."

David and his new friend ascended the steps and in a moment stood before Hook.

"My Lord," David said to the stranger, indicating Hook, "this is the friend that I told you of with a problem for which you might be able to provide insight, Captain Hook. Captain," he continued turning toward Hook, "may I present my new acquaintance, Lord Neal Cassidy."

Hook could see the man step forward, could see his mouth moving, watched him extend a hand for Hook to shake, but he could hear nothing over the sudden rush of blood to his ears.

Neal Cassidy? Son of Judge Cassidy. Emma's assaulter and the father of her son?

What providence, nay, what divine intelligence had introduced David- Hook's one true friend in the City- with Hook's mortal enemy in such a way as to bring the man to Hook's ship, under Hook's mercy, awaiting all-unknowing, Hook's justice?

He could feel the weight of the sharp steel at his left wrist and was aware of the familiarity of his sword on his hip. There were also pistols, knives, axes, and hammers aplenty aboard the ship, should either of Hook's own weapons prove inadequate.

But his death would simply not be good enough for Hook, no. The bloodthirsty pirate he had become in ten years wanted the man to know precisely why he was dying. He wanted him to confess his crimes under torture. He wanted this pale, foolish aristocrat to beg at his knees for mercy and Hook wanted to deny it him again and again until finally he granted it in the form of the man's death.

He wanted to hear the man shriek in pain and grief as Hook's heart did each time he thought of his Emma.

He blinked and everything else in the world rushed back to him including David's concerned frown and Lord Cassidy's confused look.

"Are you alright, Hook?" David asked.

Hook raised his hand as though to brush David's concern out of the air and to Neal Cassidy he gave what he thought might be the first truly genuine smile that had graced his face since first he had seen the filthy miasma of London through his spyglass lens. At the back of it was furious vengeance.

"My apologies, David, I was only surprised." He reached out and took Neal's hand, shaking it with warm vigour even as he continued to speak. "My Lord Cassidy. Are you the son of the great Judge Cassidy?"

"I am," Neal said, frowning down at the hand still shaking his. "You have heard of my father?"

Hook let go of the other man's hand but clapped him on the back instead. "One can hardly set foot in London and not be regaled with tales of the justice and wisdom of Judge Cassidy. To have his only son here and willing to assist me means, I do not doubt, that my troubles are at an end. Who else could provide sufficient insight? Who else could be so clever?"

Hook felt himself leaning heavily on his charm, which had been his weapon for so very long. His mind, stuck for so many hours on how best to execute his revenge seemed suddenly to be miles ahead of him. He would charm the man, trick him into a confession of what he had done to Emma, and from there Hook would wring from him every apology he could at the point of both hook and blade.

David was frowning at this odd change in behaviour. He had seen Hook wheedle and cajole and charm and flirt to get his way when sharpness, violence, and threats would not do it, but he could not see what was at stake in this situation. Hook wished he could assure his friend that all would come clear soon, but to do so would tip his hand and he could not afford to do that.

Not with so much riding on the line.

"Come my Lord, you must allow me to offer you hospitality. My ship is not so fine as some of the great houses to which you have no doubt been a regular guest, but I'm sure I can find it here to provide you with a drink."

Hook was pleased to see that the young Lord Cassidy was easily flattered and not a man given to great insight nor even suspicion. He was already willing to accept acquaintance and drink from this man he had scarcely met and whose business he did not yet know.

Yes, Hook thought privately, here was a man whose tongue would loosen quickly under the application of rum.

He led the way to his own cabin and poured three glasses of rum for the three gentlemen. He allowed himself barely a taste of his own, wanting to keep a clear head. He noticed that David also sipped with more caution than pleasure, but young Lord Cassidy drank his off in a go. Hook immediately refilled his glass only to have him drink it down again and then, to his amused pleasure, a third time.

His fourth glass was taken somewhat slower, but not by much and when Hook finally refilled the glass a fifth time, Lord Cassidy was blinking owlishly at the pirate captain.

"My dear Captain Hook, while you may not offer the finest cushions in London nor the prettiest companionship," Neal said, giving a slight giggle at this last, "you do provide an excellent libation. I know I have come to answer your questions and I am able, but I have one for you, if you would permit me?"

"But of course, my Lord. For you, I am an open book."

"Tell me then, how did you lose your left hand?"

Hook heard David suck in a shocked breath at the gaucheness of this question, but Hook himself betrayed neither surprise nor annoyance, merely smiled at the young man and lifted his hook as though to examine it.

"Bitten off by a crocodile along the Nile," he said, and continued before the young man could work that out, "it's been bloody useful to me over the years. I was once climbing a sheer cliff face and the rope broke. I managed to catch a protruding rock with the hook and dangled- near pulled my arm from its socket, but as a hook does not grow weary as a hand does, I was able to hold on until a rope could be managed by those waiting for me at the top."

Neal Cassidy frowned at this story. "Is that true?" he asked, sounding dubious.

Again, Hook grinned. "One thing you should know about sailors, lad. All of our stories are true, even if they've never happened." He lifted his glass of rum as though to toast this bit of wit and, as he had hoped, Lord Cassidy took the signal to finish off his glass once again.

As Hook refilled the glass yet again, Neal seemed to remember why it was that he found himself aboard a ship.

"So tell me, Captain Hook," he said with the careful diction of a man who is becoming remarkably drunk, "what is it that brought you to me for advice?"

"That is a long story, my Lord, but it begins, as good stories always do, with a woman."

"Ah," Lord Cassidy said, sagely. "Pretty woman, was she?"

"Aye, my Lord," Hook said, his voice becoming, for the first time, truly gentle. "Fair as a sunrise and sweet and mild as honeyed milk."

This last was a lie- his Emma had been a wildcat when roused, hissing and spitting and brandishing her claws- but the narrative was better this way.

"What would the world be," Neal asked, expansively, "without pretty women? Less complicated, I think."

"Perhaps so, my Lord, but I would also say less pleasant."

Neal seemed to consider this deeply as he gazed into the golden-brown depths of his rum. "Perhaps so, Captain, perhaps so. Tell me of your pretty woman though. What did she look like?"

Hook smiled. He had been hoping for such an opportunity. "She was blonde, my Lord, and fair, with a sweet smile and eyes like-"

"Captain Hook? Are you here, Love?"

Both David and Hook were on their feet when the door to the cabin was opened to reveal Milah Gold. Neal, struggling against the quantity of rum he had imbibed took longer, and it was not until Hook had bitten off an irritable "madam" toward the woman standing at the door that he managed to turn and see her.

"Mother!" he cried.

"Neal," said she, her face having gone suddenly pale.

"What are you doing here?" they both asked atop one another.

"Ten years you've been gone, Mother! I thought you perhaps dead, but instead I find you here in the company of sailors? Is this what you've done? Left my father to become a dockside whore?"

Milah opened her mouth to object, but Neal had already turned drunkenly to Hook and David, both of whom were watching the reunion with open mouths.

"And you two! Drawing me here with tales of adventure and pretty women like decent men. If hers is the company you keep, you'll have none of mine!" With that, Lord Cassidy pushed past his mother and, stumbling only slightly on the gangway, was off the boat in a moment.

Milah turned as though to follow him, but was arrested by a low, dangerous voice.

"Wait."

She turned back to find Hook glaring at her, his blue eyes as cold as ice and bright as fire.

"You told me to wait. I said that I would kill him and you, thinking only of the lad you claimed, told me to stop. To hesitate. To wait. For what, I now wonder. For you to warn your son and send him running before facing my justice?"

"Hook, what-?" David began, but stopped when the Captain held up a hand to silence him.

"You know your plan would have hurt the lad!" Milah cried, cowering against the cabin wall as Hook took a menacing step toward her. "Else you would never have let me talk you out of it. I haven't spoken to my son or the Judge in ten years, I wasn't going to tell them anything."

"But you thought perhaps it wasn't important enough to tell me that you were married to the man I intended to kill, and mother of the other!" Hook's voice had begun low and sinister, but by the end of the sentence had risen to a shout as he stood over Milah.

"Hook!" David had crossed the room to grab Hook's arm and pull him away from the woman who looked like she was about to start weeping any moment. As the Captain turned, however, David found himself staring down his nose at the man's hook only an inch from his face.

The pirate seemed to come back to himself after a moment, however, though David hoped he would never again have that murderous, slightly unhinged stare leveled at him again.

"I didn't tell you because I've never told anyone since I left," Milah said, having apparently found her spine again now that Hook was not bearing down upon her. "I had to leave, didn't I? How could I stay after what he'd done to you?"

"Emma-" Hook began, but Milah cut him off.

"Not just her, you fool. Your being pressed barely out of sight of London was no accident. The Judge made sure it would happen, and he'd have had you shipped off to war or the colonies if news hadn't come in of your ship being sunk by pirates. He had no intention of you returning to London after what he had done to your wife."

"So you left husband and child and grandchild behind?" Hook asked, though some of the bite was draining from his voice.

"There wasn't a thing I could do for Henry then. I'm trying to do right by him now and help you get him out of that horrible house, aren't I?"

She glared at him defiantly. Hook only stood, glaring back. After this standoff of some minutes, Hook finally turned away.

"Perhaps you are correct, madam, but I want you off my ship now."

"But I-"

Hook turned, his eyes blazing again. "This is my ship, and I am master here, and if I tell you to go, you will go and not return until I give you permission to do so. Do I make myself plain, Madam?"

There was no arguing with that look of cold fury, and Milah did not try. She turned and fled the cabin without another word or a backward glance.

Once she was gone, Hook turned toward David standing in the corner and watching the drama unfold.

"I'm sorry, David. I hadn't intended-"

"Tell me what is happening, Hook! I feel as though I have walked into a farce in the middle of the second act. Tell me what ails you and I will try to help you, but I cannot do so if not given all of the information, don't you understand?"

Hook sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, looking older and more tired than ever David had seen him.

"You are right, my friend. I owe you an explanation. Sit, pour yourself a drink, a proper one this time, and I will tell you all."

Once the two men were sat together, Hook took a long moment to stare into his glass of rum as though gathering his thoughts.

"I told you once that in London lived an honest sailor and his beautiful wife, did I not?"

"You did," David agreed.

"What I did not tell you- what I did not even know myself at the time- was what happened after that honest sailor was presumed dead…"


	3. Act II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> See author's note at the end of the Prologue for content warnings.

**Wigmaker Sequence**

_The riding trail in the park_

David waited in the copse of trees beside the riding trail in the park where he had waited every day for the past three days since Hook's revelations in the Captain's cabin of his ship.

On that day, David had gone simply to find some quiet place to consider all of the things that had become known to him on that day.

Hook's wife assaulted and abused by Neal Cassidy. That same woman dying in childbirth to Cassidy's son. Hook's desire to take the boy and claim him as his own.

" _Henry," David had said the third time Hook had called him 'the boy' or 'the lad.' "His name is Henry."_

_Hook's eyes had been desperate, pleading. "You've seen him. Is he well? Is he happy? Henry… Emma's son."_

_And what could David say to that plea? He had told Hook what he knew- that Henry appeared clever and healthy. The pirate had appeared relieved to hear that._

Then there had been Mrs. Gold's (Mrs. Cassidy, David reminded himself, whatever she was calling herself now) perfidy.

David had gone to the park to clear his head after he had left the ship only to find, once he got there, that the very object around which his thoughts had revolved was there seemingly waiting for him.

"I had hoped you would come," Henry had said, grinning at him. He'd said nothing else about it, only chattered happily to David about fairy tales and a person who seemed to be an imaginary friend or ghost in his house.

As he'd talked, David had found himself looking at the boy carefully, trying to see his father in him.

_It had been at the end of the interview, and both Hook and David had been emotionally drained. David had considered saying nothing, just leaving well-enough alone, but his friend had looked so devastated that he could not help himself._

" _Hook… have you considered that Henry might be… yours?"_

_The Captain had stared at him blankly for a long moment. "Mine?"_

_David had shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. "I don't know the timing, and neither do you but… well… it's possible, isn't it?"_

_Hook's mouth had opened slightly at that, confusion and disbelief and something that looked just a tiny bit like hope lighting those sea-blue eyes for one moment before all were snuffed out._

" _If Emma had been pregnant, she'd have told me," he said and he'd looked so lost and alone that David had been unwilling to pursue the matter._

The idea hadn't gone from David's head, however, and as Henry had challenged him to a duel with long, straight tree-branches as swords, he had found himself searching the young face for some familiar feature.

Both men who might have been his father had hair that was nearly black, where Henry's was a softer, chestnut colour. Neal had grey eyes, and Hook had those startlingly blue ones, but Henry's eyes were an odd green colour that changed in each light, sometimes peaty brown, sometimes gemstone bright. Both men had square jaws, but Henry's was rounder, though it might harden with age.

The truth was that, as young as Henry was, he might resemble just about anyone, and since David did not know what his mother looked like (save for blonde and fair), he could not tell which features might have been given the lad by her either.

David had agreed that the home of a rapist and attempted murderer was not the best place for Henry to grow up, but he'd been hesitant to say that a pirate ship would be much better. The more time he spent with Henry, however (for two days after that first, he had come to the park to find Henry waiting for him) the more he had begun to wonder if the filial love of the pirate's crew might not be exactly what the young man needed.

For all that Henry was well-fed, well-educated, well-clothed, and well-shod, which was more than could be said for most children in London, he seemed too desperate for the company of a strange man that he had only met once for David to feel completely comfortable. When he asked the boy about his other friends, he'd shrugged skinny shoulders and said that the crying woman (the ghost in his house) was his only friend.

The child was, David concluded, desperately lonely.

On the fourth day, David had come to the park earlier than usual. He had spent much of the morning searching for work but found that his name was known everywhere he went, and not spoken of well. He might have been impressed with Lord Cassidy's social reach if it weren't keeping him from honest work.

His wife promised that by the time they had run through his wages from Hook's ship, everyone would have forgotten Lord Cassidy's character attacks, but David feared this was only Mary Margaret's persistent optimism rather than any actual possibility.

Hook's offer grew more appealing by the day to David, and he found himself wondering some nights if Henry wouldn't need someone like himself and Mary Margaret to keep him from trouble.

"David!" Henry called, breaking into these swirling thoughts. He looked up to see the lad's face wreathed in smiles as he approached the clearing.

"Hello, Henry, how are you?"

"I read the story of Hansel and Gretel today," Henry said as he and David began to walk together. Henry picked up a stick and began to hit the trunks of trees with it as young boys do. "I think that's a sadder story than most people make it out to be. Their mother and father wanted them but couldn't keep them, and even when they made it back nothing had changed… they wouldn't have been able to keep them even then, right?"

David was surprised by the boy's insight and sensitivity and agreed that it sounded to him like the situation was untenable.

"I think it's nice that their parents wanted them though," Henry said, and he sounded sad.

"Henry," David began, wondering if he should even be broaching the subject with the boy, but unable to stop himself, "where is your mother?"

Henry shrugged, seemingly unperturbed by the personal nature of the question. "I don't really know. My grandfather won't say much about her except that she was unsuitable. My father does say that she was beautiful, but only when he's been drinking. Cook says that she was my father's doxy. Not sure what that means, but I know she wasn't married to him. I think she must be dead now. Mothers don't leave their children unless they're dead, isn't that right?"

This last was asked with such desperate longing that David felt his heart constrict. "Yes, Henry, that's right. Your mother is dead or she'd never have left you, I promise it."

Henry looked up at David in surprise. "Did you know my mother?" he asked.

David shook his head. "No, lad, I never had the pleasure. A friend of mine did though. He… well he was married to her, but he was thought to be lost at sea before your mother and father met and… well he's back and he was looking for her and found that she was dead and he's very sad about it."

It felt to David like a terrible way to explain the dramas which had unfolded around Captain Hook and his wife and Neal Cassidy, but David couldn't bring himself to explain it any further.

Henry's eyes were wide and bright with adventure, however. "That's so romantic though! Just like one of my fairy tales! He's come back from the dead only to find her gone and her son…" Henry trailed off, seeming to think of something. "Does he know about me?"

David nearly laughed. "He does, Henry. He knows all about you and wants very much to meet you. Would you like to meet him?"

"Yes I would, very much! Can you bring him here to the park?"

"Well… there's a small problem with that. You see…" David had not intended to tell Henry this, thinking it would only scare the lad, but with the boy's romantic sensibilities it seemed like the truth would probably endear Hook to him more than anything. "The man is a pirate, and not often welcome in polite company."

The lad's eyes were as round and bright as a guinea at this news. "A real pirate?"

"Yes, lad, a real pirate. So to meet him you'd have to go under cover of darkness. Would you mind-" David began but was cut off.

"Could I meet him tonight?"

**By The Sea**

_Mrs. Gold's Pie Shop_

"He wants to meet you tonight," David said, leaning his forearms on the table and looking into Hook's eyes. "He thinks you're very romantic."

Hook snorted. "He'll learn quickly that a ship is hardly a place for romance."

David had dragged him back to the pie shop that afternoon, explaining that he had much to discuss with the Captain and that Milah Gold nee Cassidy must be involved.

"I wanted to talk to you about that, Hook," David said, his face and voice serious. "I know you think you must take him immediately but… I don't like it. I don't want you kidnapping that child."

"David-"

"Please Hook, just give it time. Let him meet you a few times and get comfortable with you. Maybe he'll choose to go on his own."

Hook sighed. "I can't, mate. I've left the crew too long as it is. I have to go tomorrow night at the latest."

David looked surprised. "So soon? You're leaving London already?"

Hook gave a wan smile. "This was always meant to be a short visit. I was going to come, find Emma and settle things with her- bring her with me if she'd come or make amends somehow if she wouldn't, and then back to sea. It's in my blood now, and I don't know that I could live without it anymore."

"You think she'd have gone with you?" Milah asked, speaking up for the first time in some minutes.

A small smile lit Hook's face, brief as a lightning flash over the ocean. "Aye, I think she would. She liked tales of adventure, did Emma."

"Her son is the same," David said softly. "If you offered him the chance to go on an adventure and know you better, he might say yes."

Hook gave a skeptical snort, but said nothing. There was an odd glow of hope in his chest, and he didn't want to do or say anything that might extinguish it.

"How do you come to know the lad so well then?" Milah asked, squinting at David.

"He and I have met at the park to talk and… play, actually for the last few days. I think the lad is lonely. His father and grandfather don't seem to pay much attention to him and he doesn't know many other children his own age."

"Shouldn't you be off finding work though? How is it you've time to play with a lad in the park?" Milah accused.

"Oh," David said, and glanced away as though in shame.

Hook sat forward, sensing a problem. "What's wrong, David? What's happened?"

"It's nothing, Captain, I-"

"David."

David looked up at him and sighed. "Lord Cassidy, when he said that we'd have none of his company? Seems to have extended that to every person in his acquaintance. I can't find work anywhere as he's smeared my name all over this side of town."

Hook sat back, looking guilty and annoyed. "Gods, I'm sorry mate. I never intended for you-"

"Hook," David said, matching the pirate's tone from before. "I wouldn't have left you behind on this matter. It's important to you, and you are my friend."

"Then let me make it up to you. Bring your wife and I'll take you anywhere you want to go to start over away from Neal Cassidy. Or, if you like, you can stay aboard the ship and join my crew. Your wife might find she takes to it. You certainly did."

David gave a short laugh. "My wife is a teacher, I can hardly think she'd have useful work with your crew."

Hook shrugged. "More than half of my men can't so much as read their own names. Perhaps it's time they could. And if young Henry joins the crew, he'll need someone with a woman's touch to look after him."

"But that's to be me!" Milah cried, suddenly sitting forward at the table looking annoyed.

"You are _not_ coming aboard my ship," Hook said, sharply.

"Then what am I doing here, exactly then?"

"I thought that this would be a good place for Hook and Henry to meet if Hook could remain in London for a time. As it is, if Henry stays here in London, he should know where the place is. You're his grandmother, and his only relation save his father and grandfather," David explained.

"And that's exactly why I'd go with him and he goes to sea. Your wife might be perfectly lovely, but no one is going to take care of that lad as well as his grandmother would. I've as much right as the Captain here to stay with him. More, as I'm proper family to him."

Hook was annoyed but could not deny the woman's claim. As much as he was loath to allow her place on his ship, if it meant having Emma's son- and he still wasn't convinced that the gods were kind enough to grant him that- he would accept her presence as well.

"Fine. If Henry consents to come tonight, you may come as well," he gave in, churlishly. "What is your plan for getting him out of the house then?" he asked David.

David withdrew a key from his pocket. "He gave me this which unlocks the back entrance to the house, and he's given me instructions to find his room. He said he'd be waiting for me."

"And if you're caught and thrown in prison?" Hook asked, knowing it was brutal but also knowing it was possible. "You'll need backup. I know you cannot let me go in your place as the lad doesn't know me yet, but I could go as your lookout."

"No, my wife will do that."

Hook raised an eyebrow in surprise at that. "Your wife?"

David grinned. "Mary Margaret has a bit of a checkered past that even _you_ might find impressive, Captain Hook. She was once a cat burglar and highwaywoman."

"Was she really?" Hook asked, surprise but no disbelief in his voice. He sounded, if anything, impressed. "I do look forward to meeting this fascinating lady of yours, David."

David glanced out of the front window to note the position of the sun. "I should go get her," he said after a moment. "We shall meet back here with Henry by midnight, is that understood?"

Both Milah and Hook nodded in agreement, and when David stood, Hook rose as well.

"Thank you, David," he said, sincerely, "for making it possible for me to meet Emma's son. You're a good man and a good friend."

David only smiled and patted his friend's arm as he left into the waning day.

Hook sat again and an uncomfortable silence fell between the two remaining conspirators.

"You know," Milah said after some minutes of quiet, "it might not only be young Henry could do with a woman's touch, Captain."

"Don't," he said, quietly and without heat.

"What is it about me that frightens you? The brave pirate, Captain Hook."

"I am not frightened of you."

"Oh no?" She reached out a hand and drew it down his arm until she reached the cuff of his coat, but before she could touch the skin of his hand, he turned it over and gripped her wrist in a gentle but firm hold.

"Don't," he said again.

Her eyes were cold as she glared at him. "It's been ten years and more, Hook. Do you even remember what your Emma really looks like?"

He opened his mouth to tell her that he remembered every strand of her yellow hair, every fleck of gold in her green eyes, and every pale freckle that dotted her nose, but he stopped suddenly.

He had been sure, since that day so many years ago, that the picture was fixed in his mind and would never change, and yet it _had_ been ten years. What if it had altered slowly through the intervening time and now was wrong? What if he _didn't_ remember what she looked like?

"Well?" she said, mouth turning up in an amused and triumphant smile.

He let go of her wrist as though it were a lit brand and stood, knocking back the chair as he did.

"I must go… check on the ship. See to it that it's ready to leave tonight," he said, and fled the shop like a coward.

**The Beggar Woman's Lullaby**

_The locked room in the home of the Honourable Judge Cassidy_

The world spun as she knelt before the lock on her door, hairpin in hand.

Her world usually spun. Her mind did not always settle well onto the tracks of logic and sense and sometimes, even these days, it could go spinning off into madness and dreams. To this day she did not know how long she had spent in that howling void, unbound from the world, lost only in despair and fury and pain, but she thought it might have been five years before a voice had sounded outside her door- high-pitched and hesitant- and said the words "once upon a time."

It had been those words that had repeated over and over in the maelstrom and from which she had woven a rope- a tether in the tempest.

The first night that the Snake had not brought her food or drink, she had assumed that he was trying to teach her a lesson about defiance. On the second night she had wondered, and on the third she had known- he was taking his threat seriously and would leave her to starve in the dark room.

She'd had the hairpin for months. It had been dropped somewhere outside of her room by one of the servants in the house and been unknowingly swept in on the closing door. It had seemed to her, at the time, a blessing from whatever gods listened to the fevered ramblings of the mad, and yet she had hesitated.

If she did what she intended, she would never again hear that voice. She would never again hear those words.

" _Once upon a time._ "

And so she had dithered for months, and now she feared she had left it too late as her hands shook on the lock and the world spun around her. Her sense wanted to drift away, but she gripped it and bent it to her will, closing her eyes and feeling the mechanism of the lock through her fingers.

Tumblers, he had told her once. It was all about tumblers. And you had to be very delicate.

Suddenly she felt a click and a give and she nearly laughed out loud. The gods of fever dreams had answered and the door was, for the first time in more years than she could think of, open.

The moonlight slanted into the hallway, nearly as bright a light as she could stand after so many years in the dark, and as she stepped into it, it seemed nearly to pass through her as though she were a ghost.

Could she be, she wondered as she stepped silent as a shadow down the hall. Could she have died all those years ago and spent this time haunting the dark room where she had passed?

She reached out a hand in front of herself, half expecting the moonlight to shine through. Instead it lit her skin, near translucent-pale and shone on the pulse beating in her wrist fast and light.

She recalled one of the boy's stories in which one of the two heroes died and the other, to save their true love, split their heart to share with the other.

"So long as my heart beats, yours will as well."

If only it worked like that in the real world. She'd have given her heart to him without question and thanked all the gods when hers stopped with his.

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her wits- never entirely in her control- were given to wandering under the impetus of hunger and thirst. There was no sense mourning any longer what could not be changed- she had wept for years. She had no more tears to shed.

Instead she listened. She had been a ghost in this house for a decade, and while she had not been out of the small dark room in all that time, she had ears. She knew the sound of each floorboard, each person's step, and each sigh and shift of the wood and foundation that sounded in the still hours of the night. She might have drawn plans of the house with her ears alone.

She knew, for instance, that the boy slept in the nursery on the top floor.

She knew that the servants slept in tiny cells in the back of the house.

She knew that the men slept in chambers on the front of the house one floor down from her locked room.

Silent as a shade she moved through the hallway toward the stair. So light on her feet was she that not a single floorboard protested her step. The breeze of her passing scarcely rustled the curtains. She might be a spirit, save for the relentless thrum of her blood in her ears.

Upon descending the stairs she came to two doors, side-by-side and identical. To which man belonged which door, she could not be certain, for all her years of listening.

She reached out her left hand and laid it on the knob for that door, gripping as though to turn, only to stop and release it. She then turned to the right-hand door and opened that one instead.

She stepped into the room, out of the moonlight and into the dark and waited. Creature of the darkness that she had become, her eyes would adjust quickly, and in the meantime she breathed and listened.

The room smelled of whiskey and gin and tobacco and male sweat and expensive cologne and the combination made the bile rise in the back of her throat in memory.

The man in the bed was so soaked in liquor that he did not notice as she crawled atop him, straddling his chest.

"Wake up, my Lord," she whispered, lightly slapping his face. "Wake up and see what justice looks like."

After some minutes the long-lashed grey eyes that she had last seen glinting from behind a crocodile mask opened then widened and then the mouth opened as though to scream.

She caught that scream in the pillow she pressed over his face.

**Not While I'm Around**

_The back entrance of the home of Judge Cassidy_

David winced at his every step. Mary Margaret had given him instructions in moving silently through a sleeping house, yet as much as he tried to do as she had suggested, every board seemed to scream beneath his foot as he moved through the dark stillness of the Cassidy house.

By the time he'd made it up three flights of stairs to the floor with the nursery, he was wringing with sweat and felt sure that an elephant would have made less noise. The house continued in its somnolent quiet, however.

The first door on the floor he passed atiptoe. He had been warned that this was where the nanny slept. At the second door he stopped. If he'd followed his instructions correctly, this was Henry's room.

He tapped four times on the door with his fingertips too quietly for anyone not listening for the sound to hear (he desperately hoped). The door swung open to reveal, to David's intense relief, Henry, his eyes wide and shining in the moonlight.

The boy opened his mouth as though to greet David who hurriedly put a finger to his lips in a hushing gesture. Henry's eyebrows went up, but his mouth closed and he nodded. When David began to creep back down the hall toward the stair, Henry followed close behind him.

With Henry at his back, David began, for the first time, to contemplate the danger he was putting himself, the boy, and his wife in. What would a man with Judge Cassidy's reputation do to the lad? While David had no illusions about where his own neck would end, he wondered what a heartless bastard like the judge would do to his own blood caught defying him.

He prayed that he had not led the poor lad to some horrible fate.

So preoccupied was he with these thoughts that he did not even see the apparition on the landing until he heard Henry's gasp and looked up.

There, before them, was a pale woman in a long white gown, with hair like moonlight covering her face. She stood still as a statue. Had David not been up these stairs only moments before, he might have thought her exactly that for she seemed not even to breathe.

For a wild moment, David entertained the notion that she might _be_ a ghost, so pale and other-worldly was she.

"Henry." The word was whispered in a voice that was rough and reverent at the same time, as though this name were a prayer.

David moved to put the lad behind him, but Henry was faster than him, stepping forward toward the apparition.

"Do you know me?" he asked.

David winced, sure that the question, though it was spoken in barely more than a whisper, would rouse the entire house.

"Henry," the spectre said again. "You look just like your father."

The image seemed, then, to crumble in on herself, knees buckling and shoulders going limp. David moved faster than he'd thought himself capable and caught her before she collapsed to the floor and made a sound, her warm weight in his arms finally proving to him that the vision was real.

"Henry," David whispered as quietly as he could, adjusting his new burden in his arms, "what is this?"

"Wait," Henry mouthed and darted up the stairs like a rabbit.

David did as bid, surprised at how light the woman was in his arms. She seemed to be nothing but skin and bones and weighed no more than a child.

Henry was back beside him in a trice. "The door to the mad woman's room is open," he whispered. "This must be her."

David opened his mouth to ask what the lad was talking about- a mad woman in his house?- but was interrupted by the sound of an owl's hoot.

"What was that?" Henry whispered, moving toward David in fear as he had not done at the sight of the ghostly woman.

"That was my wife," David whispered, adjusting his burden again. "The constable on patrol will be by again in five minutes. We must go. Where is her room, I'll put her back in it."

"No!" Henry said, forgetting in his upset to whisper. "We must bring her with us. She's been locked in that room for always. She can't stay here."

David opened his mouth to argue, but decided he couldn't afford it. They had to get out of the house as quickly as possible, and if that meant taking the mad ghost woman, then he would do that.

"Fine," he whispered, resigned. "Follow me as quietly as possible. Do not say a word."

For all the woman's extra weight made the floorboards creak under him worse than before, when they fled the house of the Honourable Judge Cassidy, the place remained dark and, to all eyes, asleep.

**Parlour Songs**

_Fleet Street, outside Mrs. Gold's Pie Shop_

"She's been in the house all my life," Henry explained as the quartet made their way up the street toward the meeting place. "She was always crying, except… except when I would sit outside her door and read her stories from my book of fairy tales. She would be quiet then."

"Look how thin she is," Mary Margaret said, taking one boney wrist in her hand. "David, I think they might have been _starving_ her."

David said nothing, just continued to lead the way toward the shop. Even having put the Cassidy establishment to his back, he found himself haunted by the place, as though it had cast some shadow over him that followed him even this far.

As they approached the shop, from the mists emerged another shape, tall and dark.

"David?" came a quiet voice.

"Aye, Captain, it's me."

The five converged outside the door to the shop. Hook looked around at the motley assortment and gave David a raised eyebrow.

"Captain, if I might introduce to you my wife and young Master Cassidy. Mary Margaret, Henry, this is Captain Hook."

Hook took Mary Margaret's hand and bowed over it like a gentleman, making her smile. He then extended a hand to Henry to shake.

"It is my very great pleasure to meet you both," he said, gravely.

Suddenly, the woman in David's arms shifted, tensing as though waking.

"Don't I know you, mister?" she slurred before subsiding back into the limpness of her swoon.

Hook looked at David then. "And this?" he asked.

David shrugged. "She was a prisoner in the Judge's house. We couldn't leave her behind."

Hook gave a resigned sigh and pushed open the door to the shop. "Aye, I see. You've a soft heart, David." When both Mary Margaret and Henry had entered, he lowered his voice so that only David could hear and continued, "I hope it hasn't condemned us all to the noose."

Once inside, Henry immediately claimed Hook's attention, peppering him with questions.

"Is it true you're a pirate? How does one become a pirate? Did you really know my mother? What was she like? Do you know how she died?"

David might have felt sorry for Hook, having these wounds re-opened, but his own mind was taken up with getting the woman in his arms to a bed or sofa to lie down and determining what best should be done with her.

He pushed his way into Mrs. Gold's parlour as that same woman had just stood up to meet them in the shop. He crossed to the sofa without greeting Milah and laid the woman down, gently adjusting her limbs so that she lay comfortably.

Mary Margaret had followed him into the parlour and knelt at the woman's head, gently brushing her fine, brittle hair away from her face.

David felt Milah come up behind him and stood, turning to face her, only to find her staring in horrified disbelief at the woman on the sofa. He turned to look, but could see nothing in the woman's aspect that would cause such a look. Once revealed, her face was thinner than was healthy, with a round chin and wide forehead and thick, dark lashes laid against pale cheeks- wholly unremarkable.

"What did you bring _her_ here for?" Mrs. Gold asked, her voice shaking.

"Do you know her?" David asked.

"That's the mad woman lives in the Judge's house. You should have left her. She is going to ruin everything."

"They were _starving_ her!" Mary Margaret said again. "David couldn't stand by and allow that kind of cruelty."

"And what difference does it make to him or you what the Judge does in his own home then? So long as it doesn't hurt you and yours you should just keep your bloody nose to yourself, shouldn't you?" Milah said, her voice raising in anger.

David stepped between the two women. "Will the Judge come looking for her?" he asked, trying to understand the vehemence of Milah's feeling.

"I don't know, do I? Why couldn't you leave well enough alone then? She's just some old bat who means nothing to you, but you had to bring her here?" Her voice was rising and had begun to have an hysterical edge to it.

"Who is she?" David asked, beginning to be concerned,

"I think she's a princess. Cursed and locked away by an evil sorcerer."

David, Mary Margaret, and Milah all turned to find Hook and Henry, attracted by the noise were standing at the entrance to the parlour.

"No!" Milah screamed, throwing herself at Hook. "Get out of here now! You can't-"

But Hook stood completely immobile, staring at the face of the woman on the sofa, his own face gone nearly as pale and stark as hers.

"'Don't I know you,' she said," he whispered. "Emma."

Milah collapsed, weeping at his feet.

Hook was galvanized, however, and bent to haul her up by her elbow, shoving her roughly back against the wall, his hook at her throat.

"You knew," he growled, his face an inch from hers. "You knew and you lied to me! You told me she'd died."

"No!" Milah half-shrieked, still blubbering. "No, I didn't lie. I said she'd bled. I didn't say she died. I told you she went mad!"

The point of the hook pressed deeper against her throat, not yet puncturing the skin but making a sharp indent. Even the tiniest bit more pressure and the woman would be bleeding.

"Fine," she squealed, "I lied, but only because… because I love you! It was all for you- what good would have been done you pining after a mad woman who doesn't even remember you?"

"I should kill you for what you've done to her," Hook growled.

"I never so much as laid a hand on that girl!"

"No, but you left her alone to the whims of those… _monsters_. Her and her son. You left them to be ignored and kept in the dark while you ran away and did _nothing_."

"What could I have done?"

"You could have _been_ there!" he roared. "You could have comforted and loved them but you ran. You don't deserve to live in the same world as them."

The parlour was silent, every person too petrified by the scene before them to say a word. David's brain screamed at him to do something but he could not seem to master his body to do anything.

"Killian."

The word shattered the silence like glass. Hook let go of Mrs. Gold as though burned by her touch. She collapsed to the ground but he had turned away from her, no longer interested. Instead his eyes went to the source of the voice.

David turned to see the woman on the sofa was awake. She hadn't the strength to sit up, but her eyes were open. He could see that they were a lovely jade green. They were Henry's eyes.

This was Henry's mother.

"You mustn't, Killian," she said softly, and David realized suddenly that this must be Captain Hook's real name. It acted on him like a charm and he was across the room and kneeling beside Emma's sofa in a moment.

"Emma," he whispered, and it was a prayer on his lips. Then he bent his head, buried his face in her stomach and that strong, brave man began to weep.

David thought he should look away, but everything seemed suddenly so strange and dreamlike that he found, once again, he could not move.

"Easy now," she murmured, laying a hand in the dark softness of Hook's hair. "Hush, love, hush."

She looked up, scanning the faces in the room quickly before landing on the boy.

"Henry," she whispered again, and like her name had been a prayer on Hook's tongue, Henry's was a psalm on hers.

"Do you know me?" Henry asked again, and David could hear from the note of wary hope in his voice that he was beginning to put together the pieces of the puzzle.

"Henry," David said, surprised that his voice could be so steady in the face of so much emotion, "this is your mother."

"Mother," Henry breathed. Then, when the woman held out a near-skeletal hand to him, he crossed the room in a moment to take it, standing beside Hook who had finally sat back on his heels and was wiping his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Henry," Emma said, gripping his hand in hers. "I'm so sorry that I left you."

"You didn't-" he began, but she wasn't finished.

"And I wanted to thank you for saving me."

"Saving you?" Henry asked, confused.

"Yes," she said, a small smile gracing her face. "I was so sick and so lost for so long, but then you came with your fairy tales and you never gave up on me, and it was that which helped me find my way back. You're my hero, Henry."

Though Hook had, thus far, seemed loath to look away from his wife's face, he turned then to Henry and took the boy's other hand in his.

"It would seem, young man, that I owe you a very great debt," he said, gravely. "Thank you for giving my wife back to me."

Henry looked stunned at this for a long moment, but suddenly something seemed to change in the boy. He stood straighter, his shoulders went back, and his chin went up, and he met Hook's eyes dead on, like a man.

"I was pleased to be of service, sir," he said.

The three sat in tableau for what seemed an age until the sound of Mrs. Gold's clock striking three in the morning brought everyone in the room back to themselves.

"Hook," David said, softly. "I'm sorry, but we must away if we're to be out of London by dawn."

"You're leaving?" Henry asked and he was suddenly a child again.

"I'm sorry, Lad," Hook said, and he looked it. "It might have been helped, but we've essentially stolen your mother away from your father and the Judge, and they'll be looking for her as soon as it's light. We must away before then to keep her safe."

Henry turned to David. "And you are going too?"

David's heart broke. "I'm afraid we must. Lord Cassidy has made it impossible for me to find work in the city. And we'll be able to help your mother aboard the ship."

"Oh," Henry said, and all of the years he had gained under Hook's praise seemed to fall away from him, leaving him even younger than before.

Hook glanced around at the other adults in the room and seemed to find in their faces permission for what he said next.

"You would be welcome aboard my ship, Master Cassidy," he said, using Henry's title like an adult.

Henry looked up, eyes wide. He opened his mouth as though to agree, but Hook cut him off before he could utter a sound.

"There is a problem though, and you must know it before you make any decisions. London is no longer safe for us which means that we will not come back here. If you come with us, you will likely never see your father or grandfather again. It's a difficult life, Lad, that of a pirate on the seas, but if you want it, you may have it."

Henry looked carefully at each of the faces around him, then at the floor beneath his shoes before looking up and finding his mother's eyes again.

"I think," he said after a long moment, "that my father would do well enough without me. I daresay it would simplify his life considerably, and I think that, perhaps, my mother needs me."

Emma's voice shook with emotion as she said, softly, "she does, Henry. She absolutely does."

**Final Scene**

_Mrs. Gold's Pie Shop_

The following day dawned bright when a heartless man stood at the entrance to the worst pie shop in London.

"How do you do, Dearie?"

Milah's head jerked back as though pulled on a string and she found herself looking into the near-black eyes of her erstwhile husband.

"How?" she said, shocked. "How did you find me?"

He smirked. "You think I didn't know? You think I haven't known all these years where you were? You underestimate me."

"What are you doing here?" Milah asked, burying her hands under her apron to hide their shaking.

The smile vanished. "Where. Is. My. Grandson?" he asked in a slow, measured tone. He did not raise his voice, but Milah could feel the danger behind his words.

"Don't know everything, do you?"

"Off on a ship called the Jolly Roger with that sailor you always had an eye for and I thought I'd killed, and the wife you always resented. Have I missed anything, Dearie?"

"If you knew-"

"I wanted to know whose side you were on now that he'd left you high and dry. I thought all those years ago that having him killed was a dreadfully clever idea to teach you a lesson about casting your eye elsewhere, but he's done a much finer job than I ever could by casting you aside in favour of that mad doxy of his."

Milah's hands finally went still. "You had him killed because of me?"

"But of course. He'd have come back otherwise and you'd never have stopped pining after him, would you?"

"But Neal- the girl-"

The Judge suddenly went still and cold. " _Don't_ say his _name_ ," he hissed.

Milah stilled as one might upon finding a venomous adder in one's bed.

"He'd never have taken Neal's doxy back once he'd had his way with her," he continued, returning in an unsettling moment to his old voice. "Neal had nothing to fear from her husband but I? I seemed to have everything to fear. So, as you know, I had him killed, though apparently not very well."

"He loves her," she whispered. "He'd have taken her back. If you'd left him alive, I'd never have had a chance."

"Romantic claptrap, love," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "Perhaps I'd have done it anyway. Neal wanted her so very much, and he stood in the way. I got rid of him and gave the girl to Neal. When she went mad, I might have had her killed as well, or simply sent to Bedlam, save for the child."

"No you wouldn't have," she said, and there was ice and venom and steel in her voice.

The Judge merely raised an eyebrow.

"You forget, I think, how well I know you. I know what you love. Power. Over her, helpless in that room, mad and broken and sick you had more power than you'd ever had over anyone. I left you, your grandson never wanted anything from you, your son was sure to disappoint you eventually… over that girl you had all of the power though, and you'd never have given it up."

"He won't," the Judge said, softly.

"What?"

"Neal. He won't disappoint me now. She killed him before she left. That upstart bitch killed your son and you let her escape!" He was screaming by the end of this and had moved around the counter to hover over Milah, his face inches from hers a mask of fury and violence.

And then, suddenly, the fury was gone, replaced by a vague surprise. Together the two looked down to find the handle of Milah's carving knife sticking out of the Judge's stomach.

Black eyes met grey in sudden comprehension before the mortal remains of the Honourable Judge Cassidy crumpled to the floor.

Milah's mind was shockingly clear. It was too early for the first customers, but if any came, it would be soon. She had no time to hide a body anywhere but in the shop or her house. It wouldn't be safe to keep it in the house for long though. She could go under cover of night and bury the body in some obscure place outside of town, but she wasn't sure she'd be able to carry it.

She tapped her fingers against the top of the case that held the pies for sale, staring at them as she thought. Suddenly, as though placed there by the gods, a thought popped into her head.

She had a great meat grinder in the bakehouse, and meat was so dear when one could even get it. It seemed, she thought, like a waste to just _bury_ a body.

The police would soon find Neal and be looking for his killer. If his father were gone without a trace, as well as his son, who would ever suspect a pirate captain and his lady who had just happened to leave port the same night he died?

Practical, that was what it was. Eminently practical.

And who knew? Surely nothing could quite compare to the taste.


	4. Epilogue

**Ballad**

_Aboard the Jolly Roger_

David, Mary Margaret, Henry, Hook, and Emma all breathed a sigh of relief as the sun rose over a London that was dwindling at their back.

Hook set sail straight away toward Sussex and his men. The crew, who had spent a week thoroughly enjoying themselves in port were, nevertheless, pleased to see their Captain returned. Too much time on land makes a sailor anxious, Hook explained to Emma, Mary Margaret, and Henry.

The crew made no comment on the sudden addition to the ship of two women and a child. They trusted their Captain, and if one of the women seemed determined to make them learn their letters and the other woman seemed decidedly odd, Captain Hook had stood testament for them, and that was sufficient for his men.

The men embraced Henry one and all, and from a child who had been so desperate for companionship as to read fairy tales to a disembodied voice behind a door, he found himself suddenly with a family of dozens.

He spent his days climbing the rigging and chasing after the men asking question after question and finding that, far from being told to quiet down and behave himself, the men answered him. David was known to step in on occasion and adjust the messages that some of the men gave him when they veered too far from the truth, but by and large, the men seemed to have nothing but patient affection for the lad.

With Mary Margaret they were wary, most having had unfortunate experiences with school teachers in their youths which had, in some part, led to their lives of illiteracy and criminality. After no great time, however, they found her patient and unendingly kind and began- tentatively and one at a time at first- to approach her with their own questions on literature, numbers, and natural history. Over time each man came to embrace her as teacher, mother, aunt, sister, or friend, and she was as dear to them as any woman could ever be.

With Emma things were not so simple. It became quickly apparent that she had an aversion to enclosed spaces and grew panicky and hysterical very quickly whenever she went below decks. She also grew anxious when left alone for too long, but found the company of strange men difficult to abide.

No man on the crew would say a word against her, for the Captain had claimed her as his lady, but after the first time she had begun to shake and panic in the presence of one of the men, they took to avoiding her.

Hook, David, and Mary Margaret were at her side as often as possible, but before, after, and every moment in between, Henry was with her. The pair of them read books together and talked, Henry wrote new fairy tales for her, having left his book behind them in London, and she told him the few stories she remembered from her own childhood, but as often as not the two would simply sit in silence, holding hands with one another.

~?~?~?~?~

Hook had decided that they must go someplace sunny and warm, thinking this would be better for Emma than somewhere cold and misty to remind her of London. He had, to this purpose, set sail for the Mediterranean and its rich waters.

One night as the sun set over the ocean, turning the water bloody, he and Emma sat together in the bow of the ship. She was sitting between his legs, her back against his chest and his arm around her waist. They had been together again for three weeks, but Emma could still not abide being below decks and so they had very little time together outside of the view of the crew. For the moment, the men were pretending that they could not see their captain and his lady, and they were pretending to be alone.

"I am sorry, Emma," he murmured into her hair.

"Sorry?" she asked.

"I am sorry I left you for that voyage. If I'd been there… so much would not have happened to you, Love. So much would have been better. You'd never have been hurt. I'd never have allowed it."

She sat silent in his arms for a long, quiet moment as the sea rocked them gently.

She picked up his left arm, at the end of which was his sharp silver hook. "I think we were both hurt badly by it, Killian my love," she said, kissing the cold metal as though it were his fingers. "I think neither of us need apologize for what happened. We are neither of us to blame, and those who are are long gone."

She had confessed killing Lord Cassidy to him one day shortly outside of London. She had not sounded ashamed, but had thought he needed to know in case the Judge ever came looking for them. He thought it unlikely, but thanked her for the warning, and had then asked her to forget that Neal Cassidy had even existed.

He thought it must be impossible with Henry at her side day and night, but she seemed perfectly willing to try.

~?~?~?~?~

They were two months out of London when one night Emma entered his cabin of her own volition.

She still slept above decks, and most nights he slept nearby, but where she would sleep on deck even in mist and cold and light rain, he was not so adaptable and retreated to his warm cabin when the weather was poor.

She had managed some time below decks during truly dangerous weather- storms and wind like as to turn the ship over entirely- and she could now take her meals in the mess with the rest of the crew, but to spend an entire night in the confinement of his cabin was still beyond her.

And yet, on that night, he woke to the sound of his door being opened, and Emma standing framed in the dim starlight like Tatiana of Faerie.

She had crossed to him on silent feet, sliding into the bed beside him without a word.

"Emma," he whispered, but she reached up to put a finger against his lips to silence him.

He wrapped his right hand around her wrist and kissed her fingertip then brought each subsequent digit to his mouth to kiss, and then to suck, one after the other, into his mouth as well.

She had smiled then, and he had bent his head to kiss that smile- the one he had dreamed of. The one he had feared he had forgotten. The one he hadn't forgotten for even an instant.

It had been so long for each of them and they made love achingly slowly, exorcising the pain and loneliness of ten years without one another. He emptied into her the loss of his hand, the loss of his dignity, and the loss of his freedom. She anointed him with her madness, and the horrible, desperate struggle to regain her mind. She rose over him, gilded with moonlight, a goddess, and he beneath her was the dark desires of both of their hearts.

When they were through, he found himself tracing her lines still with his hand as his other arm held her to him. In their months at sea she had eaten better, exercised, and seen the sun nearly every day. There was flesh beneath her skin, and his fingers gloried in it. Her hair was golden silk, no longer white and brittle. Her skin was flushed pink by the sun, no longer translucent-pale. Her eyes no longer glittered out of deep dark sockets as though in a skull, but shone over happiness-flushed cheeks as green as the sea when the sun lit it at dawn.

Every change in her he reveled in and when she fell asleep in his arms, in his bed, and in his cabin, his battered dark heart sang.

~?~?~?~?~

It was some six months after they found each other again that Emma apologized to Killian.

The two of them were sitting side-by-side in the stern of the ship watching Henry pester two of the gunners as they practiced loading and aiming.

"The lad has taken to life at sea like a fish," Killian laughed, his fingers tightly laced with Emma's.

"Well, it's in his blood," she said, smiling fondly after her son.

The two sat quietly together for a long moment, Killian trying to work out what she meant by this, when she spoke again, sounding suddenly serious.

"Killian, I'm sorry I never told you about him."

"I… who?"

"Henry, of course. I… well I wasn't entirely sure, and I didn't want you to worry and, in my defense, I was sure you'd be back long before I would need you so I… didn't say anything when you left, and I'm sorry."

Killian turned to face her, his blue eyes wide and shocked. "Emma, love, what are you saying?"

She frowned, a crease forming between her brows. "What do you mean?"

"Are you saying that the lad… that Henry is… _mine_?"

Emma blinked in surprise. "But of course… I thought you knew. You didn't think he was… _His_?"

"Everyone thought Henry was his," Killian said, trying to keep himself from losing his temper with her. "Henry himself thinks he is."

Emma shook her head. " _He_ was the only father that Henry knew for the first ten years of his life. He's too young to really understand, but someday I will tell him. Both what _He_ was and exactly what you are, but I can't take his father from him now. Not when you and he are so new."

"Are you sure?" Killian asked, feeling as though some warm bubble were forming in his chest, but unwilling to give into the feeling when there was still the chance of doubt. "The timing means it could be-"

"Absolutely sure," she said, stubbornly. "I remember very few things from those days, but of that I am completely certain. But I thought you must know. You are so good with him and you took him on- you sent David to rescue him from the Judge's house-"

"Emma, I claimed him because he is _yours_ , my darling. There is not a thing in or about you now, nor will there ever be, that I do not love completely, and that includes Henry. It doesn't change anything for him to be mine, though I find I am most terribly proud of myself for his being so clever and handsome and brave of a sudden."

Emma laughed, a musical sound that lifted Killian's heart and echoed across the waves like a mermaid's song.

Henry turned and saw the pair of them laughing like loons together, framed by the sky and the waves, like a picture in a storybook, and he smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note:
> 
> Congratulations, you've made it through the overture. Now you might actually want to know something about what the story you've gotten yourself into is about.
> 
> This is a Sweeney Todd AU with Captain Swan and several other characters from Once Upon a Time. If you know the musical, you probably have a good idea what you're in for, but if you don't, I would recommend a quick skim of the Wikipedia plot synopsis to help you decide if this is a story you want to pursue.
> 
> The cast of characters is as follows:
> 
> Sweeney Todd/Benjamin Barker- Captain Hook/Killian Jones
> 
> Lucy Barker- Emma Swan
> 
> Joanna Barker/Tobias- Henry Mills (many liberties were taken with this character)
> 
> Mrs. Lovett- Milah
> 
> Judge Turpin/Beadle Bamford- Rumplestiltskin/Baelfire (these characters were combined and then various aspects were assigned to each character)
> 
> Anthony- David Nolan
> 
> I think I should make it clear before we get started that I do not hate Neal or Milah (my opinions on Rumple are relatively complicated), and casting them as villains in this piece does not reflect on my feelings about them in canon.
> 
> Finally, content warnings. There will be talk about a rape that happened in the past, pregnancy, blood, and there are some acts of violence in this fic. The original musical is a horror piece that involves a vengeful man killing half of London (spoilers). A lot less death happens in this fic than in the original musical, but people will die.
> 
> My policy is that if anything in the above makes you think that this is not the fic for you, this is the place to get off and no harm, no foul!
> 
> Finally, I must extend all the thanks in the world to WhoLockGal, without whom this silly piece of silliness would not exist, and The-Doctors-Mind-Palace who was willing to be a second-round beta when I was driving myself up the wall in worry about this piece.
> 
> If I haven't completely scared you off with all of this, I do hope you'll stop by again tomorrow for Act I!


End file.
